But this was not what he was required to believe.

He had read lately the description of a brutal, half-imbecile savage, who had committed a peculiarly frightful and revolting murder, and he was told to recognize in this wretch the father of his darling.

But it was just this which saved him.

He would believe that Christian was Mrs.
Costello's husband and Lucia's father, because Mrs.Costello told him so herself and of her own knowledge--but as for a murder, innocent men were often accused of that; and when a man is once accused by the popular voice of a horrible crime, everybody knows how freely appropriate qualities can be bestowed on him.

So the conviction which remained at the bottom of Maurice's mind, though he never drew it up and looked steadily at it, was just the truth--that Christian, by some train of circumstances or other, had been made to bear the weight of another person's guilt.